Disaster in Rio Grande Valley 75 



volunteers (a lesson I learned from Jack Hayes^ 

 when I was in Texas), and Combs was one of the 

 first to come forward. He was so debilitated I 

 refused to let him go, and it was quite a task, tired 

 and ill as I was, to convince him, it was his strength, 

 not his spirit I doubted. How glad he was now, 

 that I had not allowed him to go. Alas, he had a 

 longer journey before him. At ten next morning 

 the fatal stupor came over him. His friend J. J. 

 Bloomfield had been like a brother to him, untiring 

 in his devotion, and when in a few hours Combs 

 ceased to breathe Bloomfield almost collapsed him- 

 self. Of the entire company that started with us 

 for California, at one time numbering ninety-eight, 

 Hudson, Bloomfield, Bachman and Damon were 

 all who were able to help me perform the last rites 

 for their companion. 



After two hours hard work we had dug a grave, 

 and returned to camp, the soil was a lime-like one, 

 so hard that every inch had to be picked. Our 

 whole camp was silent, as we wrapped Combs in 

 his blankets; "not a drum was heard nor a funeral 

 note," came strongly to my mind, and about t^venty 

 of the company started to follow to the grave; the 

 burning heat of the day was past and the sun 

 was just setting in a sky without a cloud. All 



^ Col. John C. Hays, the Texas ranger and Indian fighter, 

 who won a national reputation at the siege of Monterey. He 

 went to California in 1849, became ^^st sheriff of San Francisco 

 and afterward United States surveyor-general for California. 



